Hasta La Ideas

Piles of grain sacks were used to create the walls of this mobile pop-up cafe and bakery in Hangzhou, China, which was designed by local studio FOG Architecture.

Called the Cycle Cycle Mobile Bakehouse, the pavilion was designed following the lockdown of Shanghai during the Covid-19 pandemic as a means of exploring how food could re-activate public space.

FOG Architecture looked to traditional rural barns to inform the structure of Mobile Bakehouse, creating a modular timber structure that could be easily demounted and transported from city to city on the back of a truck.

As the bakehouse moved to new locations, FOG Architecture created a short film to capture its different uses and sites.

“After the Shanghai lockdown, we all felt a need to build something to reconnect people, and food, especially bread and coffee, was such a picture that we could vision during that time,” Zheng Yu, parter at FOG Architecture told Dezeen.

“Architecturally, I think of it as a deployable food device that can change the speed of flow of a public zone in cities.”

“The opening of this shop is a process of unfolding, which inserts a performative moment into the streets, and then the smell of bread lures people to get along and grab something,” he added.

Once the Cycle Cycle Mobile Bakehouse is transported to its location, the wooden framework is assembled and infilled with walls of grain sacks, which gradually decrease in size towards the top of the structure.

At each location passers-by were encouraged to take part in this construction process, which FOG Architecture saw as part of the “performative moment”.

Along the long edges of the pavilion are two extendable canopies covered in bamboo mats, their edges lined with curtains which shelter seating areas alongside a small window and serving hatch.

A small ladder was positioned on one site of the pavilion in another reference to typical rural barns. FOG Architecture also designed the furniture that accompanies the Mobile Bakehouse, creating low chairs that were informed by rural furniture.

“In rural settings, such low chairs are common as they allow for easy access to the ground, effectively transforming a broader surface into a larger working area for handling various crops,” partner Lei Ronghua told Dezeen.

“Whenever encountering such low stools, it triggers memories of working and living in rural environments.”

FOG Architecture was founded by Zheng Yu and Zhan Di and has offices in London, Shanghai and Chongqing.

Previously the studio completed a fashion boutique in Xiaozhuo featuring oversized buttons and zippers, and transformed a traditional courtyard home in Beijing into a flagship store for fragrance brand ToSummer.

The photography is by Inspace.

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